“You are here for Tom Green?” she asked. Even her voice was tired.
“Hugo Marston. This is Claudia Roux. We’re from the US Embassy, and we’re Tom’s friends.”
“I am Doctor Reynard. Bullet wounds seem to have become my specialty, especially lately.” Her shoulder seemed to sag with the memories of torn flesh. “Anyway, I would guess the gun was a.22 caliber and the shooter used bullets with a lead core and copper jackets. Normally, when they hit their target the copper opens up like the petals of a flower, jagged metal leaves that shred everything they touch. They make truly horrible wounds, almost always irreparable and usually fatal.” She held Hugo’s eye. “Your friend, Tom. He is charmed.” She allowed herself a small smile before continuing. “I don’t know who he prays to, but I’d like to find out.”
“He’ll be OK?” Claudia blurted.
“Oh, yes. He is perhaps the luckiest shooting victim I’ve ever seen. He was hit twice. One bullet passed right through his upper arm, but I think it was a ricochet because there was no sign of that monstrous shredding. The second shot lodged between two ribs.” She reached into the bag. “Thanks to this.”
Hugo grinned as he took the metal hip flask from her. “This saved his life?”
“Yes. The flask stripped the jacket off, which otherwise would have probably torn his heart and lungs to shreds. As it was, the flask peeled off the copper and changed the trajectory. The lead core made it through and bounced like a pinball between those two ribs. Both are cracked and he will be in a lot of pain for a while. But yes, that saved his life.” She handed him a small plastic film canister. “I’m supposed to report this, but under the circumstances …” She shrugged and turned away.
Hugo watched as she walked down the hall. She stopped to talk to the CIA goons, no doubt reassuring them that the bullets themselves had been saved for ballistics comparison. As if there were any doubt about who’d fired them.
He looked down at the container and peeled the lid off it. He immediately recognized the distinctive color and fine grain of powdered cocaine. His heart sank, but it explained Tom’s alertness that evening. Hugo resealed the plastic tub and put it in his pocket. He wrapped his arms around Claudia, pulling her close and resting his chin on her head so she couldn’t see the tears that filled his eyes.
“Hugo. You’re squeezing a little hard,” she whispered.
He let her go and they both turned as two orderlies propped open the doors to the operating room, then went back in to take their places at either end of Tom’s gurney. Hugo and Claudia watched as they wheeled him slowly past. Tom’s chest was wrapped in bandages and tubes ran into both arms like Frankenstein’s wires. What they could see of his face was as white as the sheets that covered his lower body and Hugo shook away the vision of his friend lying dead. Unconscious, Hugo told himself. He’s just unconscious.
“Come on,” Claudia said. “You could probably use some rest, too.”
Hugo took her hand and smiled. “There’s no ‘probably’ about it.”
Chapter Twenty-three
The Scarab raged.
Fists clenched, he stalked the inside of his small apartment, shins banging into furniture as he muttered under his breath. He pressed his fists to his forehead as he moved, anguish slipping its claws through his skull and into his brain. That anguish was starting to take shape, too, dark shadows melting in from the walls of his mind to take the form of the silhouette of a man, a man tall and broad-shouldered.
He was sure it was the same man he’d seen at Père Lachaise, it must have been: not only was he the same size, but moved the same way. And he had almost ended things, cut off the only line he had left from this world to the next, to the woman on the other side.
Nothing, nothing, could be worse than that.
But he’d made it out. He had fought the man off and escaped with enough of the beautiful, lovely, wonderful La Goulue.
He concentrated his thoughts on the woman wrapped carefully in gauze and felt the anguish subside, taken over by a growing wash of pride that swept over him. Despite all the work, all the danger, he was getting close and after tonight, after a few hours in his sanctuary with Jane Avril and La Goulue, he would be so much closer still.
Three deep thumps came from the floor above, the old bitch with the broom handle. He must have been crying out again. She didn’t like it when he did that.
She wouldn’t have to put up with it for long.
He showered, washing himself slowly and carefully, still fascinated by the muscular body that was his, pleased by the lines of strength across his stomach, the steel of his thighs, self-indulgence made possible by the steam from the water that distorted perception and hid the shortness that tempered his pride, and that blurred the mirror across from him, obscuring the brutal face that was all anyone else ever saw of him.
When he had dressed, he walked to the door of his sanctuary, paused as he always did, and entered slowly, switching on the red bulb that hung from the middle of the ceiling. Its light was perfect for his task, sunrise and sunset, muted energy, turning the corners of the room into shadows and putting all the light’s focus on what lay below it.
He worked for two hours in his sanctuary, unwrapping La Goulue with a tenderness he felt sure she’d never enjoyed while alive, placing her piece by piece in the casket, her light and brittle bones barely creasing the silk that lined the box. Every touch was electric, he could feel the life flowing into the box as each bone took its rightful place, like branches added to a bonfire — except he was reversing the process, turning bones into life, not sticks into ashes.
When he was done, when she was done, he stayed on his knees just staring. She was there, the women that had once been La Goulue and Jane Avril, together as only he could make them, and almost as together as they would ever be.
Four more nights.
That’s all he needed, that’s all the time he had left. A few more additions to make, and while none of them would be perfect, they didn’t need to be. Even though she herself was perfect, she’d never expected him to be. No, she’d only ever expected him to try, and he’d certainly done that.
He went to the long, low table and looked down at a photograph album, its heavy cover slapping the table when he flipped it open. An envelope had been glued to the inside front cover, the flap left open to him. He caressed the worn paper and carefully lifted the flap. His thick fingers, normally so clumsy, had done this a thousand times and it was easy for him to slide out the locket of her hair. She’d given it to him about two months before she disappeared, told him to keep it forever, but to hide it well.
He had, well enough that he had never found it. A lock of her dark hair, folded in half and tied with a red ribbon. He held it to his lips for just a moment, and smiled. Soon this precious lock would finally bind it all together.
But not yet, not for four more days.
He looked through the photos. Some were of him but most were of his mother, the most beautiful woman in the world, a dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty with olive skin and lips that she’d paint red, then kiss him with, then repaint as he knelt on the floor by her side. A beauty she shared as best she could with the world, for as long as she could, until the man who called himself a father destroyed her. Destroyed him, too, because without his mother the Scarab had lost the only person who’d ever loved him, cared for him, shared with him.
He wondered, looking at her, how it was they were of the same flesh and blood. With his squat, ugly face and her perfect skin and balanced features. He admired the photos of her, taken as she worked and used for promotional purposes, photos that showed the lithe body he’d not inherited, the body she had made more powerful and exciting with exquisite tattoos. His favorite was the king cobra that writhed across her stomach, rising up between her breasts so it could sink its fangs into the soft skin that made up the hollow beneath her throat.